


I Come Here Alone

by breakable_fix



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Kinda, Spoilers for 2x16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3535154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breakable_fix/pseuds/breakable_fix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is midday when she remembers herself, the girl they called Clarke, and she collapses again. She wracks her body dry, heaving sobs spilling hot hot tears onto the ground inches from her face. Things come back to her in fragments, memories belonging to the girl they call Clarke. The look on her mother’s face after the missile. The feel of Lexa’s lips on hers. Bellamy’s distant voice on the radio. Raven’s screams on the first night of the truce. The feeling of blood on her hands, the feeling of sliding a knife through flesh. Seeing the light leave Finn’s face."</p><p> </p><p>After the events of 2X16 Clarke tries to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Come Here Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This *may* end up being chaptered because I was having a lot of fun speculating abt s3? so we'll see.
> 
> Title from the song promise be Ben Howard.

Clarke doesn’t look back as shes walking away, but she can feel the buzz of the camp heavy on her neck. Her footsteps are quick, a few paces away from running, and she manages to make it to the treeline before giving in on herself. She collapses, knees and hands pressed against cold Earth. Her heart beats an unsteady rhythm, flooding her heaving chest, her lungs squeezing painfully. The forest spins, green unlike any green she’s ever known, and Earth is such a cruel mistress. Things slowly fade to white. Panic grips her mind, and someone is screaming screaming screaming …

Minutes, or perhaps hours later she is sitting at the base of a large tree further into the forest. Her throat is raw and aching, but aside from that she feels empty. She thinks, absently, that she could float off, into the air and through the atmosphere, back home, back to the gentle stars. Gravity disagrees. Her iron bones are too heavy to leave, too weak to want to stay. She sighs, sucking in a huge gulp of fresh air. It feels different from when they first landed; sharper and cooler, no longer a sticky haze. A small foreign and forgotten part of her realizes winter is on its way. The thought drags her to her feet, ready to move again, even though the first snow must be weeks away. Time is a hard concept to grapple with now.

The hours shift by, bright midday light giving way to golden evening. Twilight brings a strange darkness to the woods, a different feeling thrumming across the breeze. Her mind wanders in the blue, skipping thoughts like stones across a dark ocean. She shivers as the woods slip further in cool darkness. There are things here that scare her, things in her mind and memory that cut like knives. Once the world is cloaked in inky darkness it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish herself from the emptiness surrounding her. The oldest fear fills her belly, the ancient terror claws at her mind and her feet and her aching eyes. And then she is tumbling, crashing down down down. She lands with a thud at the bottom of something and she realizes that she must have been running- for how long and how far she has no idea. The fear is stronger now, a sick and heavy drug, pressing against her mind, tugging at her eyelids. Panic is an old friend, back again, wrapping familiarly around her. The girl they called Clarke is nothing, nothing, nothing only white hot terror and evil, creeping darkness. The girl they called Clarke clasps her dirtied hands together and prays to a god shes never heard of. Moments, or perhaps hours later she curls around herself on the forest floor, tugging her knees to her chest, and rocks herself to some semblance of sleep.

It takes centuries for her to wake, and its a slow and painful process. Sunlight hits her face and she is a child, wrapped tightly in her favorite blanket. Her father is laughing in the kitchen as he makes her breakfast. She smiles. Her father is laughing, face alive and shining and suddenly, like the crack of a whip, he is gone, sucked into darkness, dragged into emptiness. She is a thousand years old. He is trapped like a photograph in the chemicals in her brain, the physical act of existence no longer a burden for him. In the moments caught between waking and sleeping, she envies him. And then she is seventeen and awake and aching in every sense of the word. Her body and her mind feel dull and heavy, but she manages to rouse them both, pulling herself to stand at the bottom of a shallow ravine. She looks around her, searching for some landmark to tell her where she was. The land is unfamiliar, but the fear that plagued her last night has all but vanished. In its place is an empty sort of hope. She starts walking towards what that small foreign and forgotten part of her tells her is north.

It is midday when she remembers herself, the girl they called Clarke, and she collapses again. She wracks her body dry, heaving sobs spilling hot hot tears onto the ground inches from her face. Afterwards, she lays with her back against the Earth, and spends the hour memorizing the way sunlight spills through the green above her. She is thirsty, but she has no water with her, so she makes no move. She tries not to think too much, focusing again on the blue and green sky. But her mind falls prey to gravity too and before she can stop herself she is falling falling falling. Things come back to her in fragments, memories belonging to the girl they called Clarke. The look on her mother’s face after the missile. The feel of Lexa’s lips on hers. Bellamy’s distant voice on the radio. Raven’s screams on the first night of the truce. The feeling of blood on her hands, the feeling of sliding a knife through flesh. Seeing the light leave Finn’s face. It feels like she is hearing these stories secondhand, like she is watching one of the old vids back on the Ark. She doesn’t cry, and a disconnected part of her tells her that shes doing it backwards. First come the memories, then come the tears. But she doesn’t know what to say to that, so she simply lifts herself up and starts walking again.

That night she manages a small fire, and because of this she sleeps well enough to dream. They are strange and dark things, creeping from parts of her she never wanted to know existed. Rivers of dark, thick blood run beneath her feet and she dips her feet in, relishing the way it washes over her pale skin. She leans forward to drink from it and catches her reflection in the surface. Her eyes are bright and wild and her hair falls long and wavy down her back. She is more beautiful and terrible than she has ever been. She wakes up screaming.

She spends the day searching for water. Around mid-morning she stumbles on a small stream, and before she knows it she is stripping her clothes off, scooping handfuls of the clear cold water over her body. She rubs and rubs and scratches at her skin, over and over until she is freezing cold and red all over. Only then does she taste the salt on her lips and realize she is weeping. She lowers her body down into the stream, curling onto her side, mimicking her first night as whoever she is now. She thinks the girl they call Clarke is wrapped tightly around Bellamy’s heart, miles away from this body. This body spends the day at the side of the stream, waiting until she has warmed from enough to pull on her still dirtied clothes.

It takes her three more nightmares to reach her destination. She isn’t sure how she found her way, but the small foreign and forgotten part of this body seemed to understand.

The girl-leader is something that could be called surprised to see her. She doesn’t know that the girl they call Clarke is not with her. Lexa’s arms feel tight and dangerous when they wrap around her in the semi-darkness of her tent.

“I truly did care about you, Clarke.” the words settle softly, no venom stinging behind them. Its only the truth. The girl they call Clarke could have love Lexa. The girl they call Clarke could have done so many things. This body doesn’t know how to do anything but fall apart. The girl they call Clarke would be furious, incensed that Lexa can stand so calmly in front of this body, knowing the destruction she’d caused. But this body simply yields to her, lets Lexa kiss her, lets Lexa wipe her tears, lets Lexa lay her down on a bed of furs and wrap herself around her.

She has no nightmares that night. Instead, she dreams of Wells. They stand hand in hand in front of the ocean. He tells her he loves her. She opens her mouth to reply but then is someone shaking her, and suddenly she is wide awake in the darkness, the dream forgotten.

“Polis awaits.” it is Lexa, hovering over her, barely visible in the early morning light. She drags herself out of the bed, pulling on boots and armor. Lexa exits.

The walk to Polis is shorter than expected, only a night and a day. This body has gained a name, one that suits it better than Clarke. Fisa. It means healer in trigedasleng and she doesn’t miss the irony there. She is no healer, not anymore. But its nicer than some of the other things shes called. Baga. Strik ripa. Stedaunon. And so she lands on fisa, and keeps it for her own.

Polis is not what she had expected. It is large and sprawling, new life built among the wreckage of an old city. There are buildings here, crumbling and ancient though they may be. The girl they call Clarke would have been thrilled with the possibilities. Fisa merely follows Lexa into the city, nodded blankly at those few individuals Lexa introduces her to.

They plan to spend a month in Polis. Fisa learns enough trigedasleng to carry on a conversation. She learns from the other healers of the city what herbs can save a man. She turns away from those that can kill one. Winter creeps closer and closer, and she can feel it in the air. That small foreign and forgotten part of her isn’t so foreign and forgotten anymore.

She and Lexa aren’t not friends or lovers. They aren’t enemies either. She isn’t sure what they are. Lexa barely speaks to her these days, and Fisa is grateful. There is too much of the girl they call Clarke in every word Lexa shares with her. And so she moves on, finding comrades in Lexa’s people, those without any sort of power, those who need to be led.

She shares her tent with a girl named Cleo, who has eyes the color of amber, a color the girl they call Clarke would have thought beautiful. Cleo is patient with her, especially on nights when the old fear and ancient terror pull at her heart. Fisa is learning to forget the girl they call Clarke, and the many lives she took. She is learning to forget the smell of charred flesh and the screams of those she damned. She is learning to forget the betrayal in the eyes of those who once trusted her. But tied up in the cruel memories of the girl they call Clarke, are so many moments that hurt to forget. The way her mother’s hair smelled, the feel of Bellamy’s arms around her, Raven’s laughter and Monty’s smile and Octavia’s harsh sweetness. Even the way Finn looked that first night on Earth, the night they spent speculating about what wonders could exist here. Even the way Wells held her, hours before his death, softening the blow of betrayal. Even her father’s laughter, loud and thundering in her memory. To forget one is to forget them all.

Still. She tries. She is Fisa, healer to the heda. No one in Polis knows much of her past. No one imagines that this silent girl is the same golden haired queen who razed a thousand cities. It is simpler this way.

They do not leave Polis after a month. She wonders later what might have happened if they had. But fate sent the first snowstorm on the eve of their departure. In the morning the world was white. Lexa announced that the trek back would be too dangerous and they must spend the winter in Polis.

Fisa hates the snow, as much as a girl with no feeling can hate anything. It seeps through everything, her pants, her boots, her coat. After two weeks she has forgotten how it feels to be warm and dry. Winter means more sickness and so she spends most of her hours tending to the people. They cough and wheeze and shiver in their tents, huddled around dying fires. Cleo tells her this is a very bad winter. The food stores are running low, the medicines are running out, and Fisa has found the easiest way to forget. Never stop moving. She wakes one morning from a fitful sleep and doesn’t think the name Clarke until she lays down that night. It feels like a victory.

Her victory is short lived.

It happens one day, several weeks into the winter. She was sent to the market to see what little medicine she could find. The usual vendor has already closed up his shop for the season, and so she makes her way further into the market. It is still bustling, even in the dead of winter, full of people from nearly every tribe. There must be someone here with what she needs. Her trigedasleng is still rudimentary, but she can manage a quick exchange. She approaches a woman to her left, and tries to strike up a casual conversation.  
“Hei. ai Fisa…” the woman’s eyes go wide and before she can finish her sentence she is whispering her name. Not Fisa. Clarke.

Things happen very fast after that. The woman grabs her arm and drags her out of the main market. She pulls her up a flight of stairs and into a small room.  
“Stay here.” she insists before leaving, the door slamming shut behind her. Fisa is terrified. She knew her real name. She knew her. The door won’t budge, even as she throws all her weight on it. There is no window to escape through. She is trapped here, by a woman who knew everything she was trying so hard to run from. And so she places herself in the corner and readies her knife. She never wanted this.

It takes a long time for the woman to return. Fisa can feel the hours getting long, that small not-so-foreign and forgotten part of her tick tick ticking. It must be three hours before the door moves.  
But its not the woman who kidnapped her standing in the doorway. Its not even a citizen of Polis.

Its Octavia.

“Clarke?” her voice is soft, terrifyingly so. Fisa bristles.

“What are you doing here.” her voice sounds harsh and angry, even to her own ears. Something strange flashes across Octavia’s face at her words, something like pain. It makes her remember.

“I’m here with Lincoln and the others. Raven and Monty and Miller.” She takes a small step closer with each name. “And Bellamy.” The extra weight she puts on his name sends a shiver down Fisa’s spine. Down Clarke’s spine. With his name she remembers.

“Do you want to see them?” Octavia is tentative, so careful. Good girl, she thinks. I am not the girl they called Clarke. I am something else entirely. Still, she nods, unsure that there is any other way out of this. Octavia nods with her.

“Ok. Well, um” she huffs out a strange little laugh. “They’re just outside.” Fisa-Clarke nods again, and follows her as she makes her way out of the small room.

“Echo told them to wait down the street. She said that you were…” she trails off, glancing up and down her entire body. Fisa-Clarke bristles again. They walk in silence to the end of the road, further away from the market in the distance. There is an ocean inside Fisa-Clarke’s mind, roiling waves and thunderstorms on the horizon. Fisa. Clarke. Fisa Clarke FisaClarke. She remembers. She remembers. Blood, death. She remembers. _You’re forgiven._ She remembers. _I bear it so they don’t have to_. She remembers. Her people. Her family.

Octavia slows her pace, coming to a full stop in front of an empty store front. A second later there are arms around her. She panics, hands formed into fist punching wildly until they connect with a gut a jaw a …

“CLARKE.” She stills, the arms around her gone. Raven stands in front of her with a freshly split lip. She gives her a rueful smile.

“Hey.” Clarke is speechless. There is a funny feeling filling her belly, wrapping itself around her lungs and heart. It feels like spring. It feels like _joy_.

“Hey.” She whispers back and a moment later Raven’s arms are around her again and she had no idea how far from home she was until this moment. Raven backs away and her space is filled by Monty and then Miller, Lincoln and Octavia. She laughs, she _laughs_ , when Monty sneaks a second hug.

And then he is there.

Her heart drops to her stomach and back again, a quick swoop and then its beating double time.

“Bellamy?” she whispers and its like a question. He smiles and she swears that even though she hasn't cried in three months there are tears in her eyes.

“How about that drink, now?” he asks and she is throwing herself at him, arms wrapping tightly around his waist, face pressed against his chest. Home. She remembers.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr @ you-ll-be-bright


End file.
